


In Shadows of The Merry

by connordown



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Descent into Madness, Episode: s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, Forced Gem Fusion, Implied Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe, Near Death Experiences, Obsessive Behavior, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21529222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connordown/pseuds/connordown
Summary: When White Diamond robs him of his gem, Steven fails to join back once he's separated into two halves. On one end, he feels an undeniable sorrow, his sense of mourning for what he planned for his beloved Earth.On another end, the rage he feels is not his to sober any longer.He's forced to realize that a long, long shadow lingers when you pretend to be happy, and it isn't so forgiving after you've left it behind.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Steven Universe, Pink Steven Universe & Steven Universe
Comments: 26
Kudos: 103





	1. Left Behind

It’s too much.

A feeling foreign and so plainly _wrong_ splits across his spine, indescribable yet intense; he first mistakes it for agony, pain that burns into his skin and brandishes all of his bones and organs, but as it travels down to his arms and legs, it becomes different. Sharpening into a sensation he isn’t sure he can understand.

It feels as if his entire body has split apart, and in the depths of his mind lead askew, he hears a whisper of someone ethereal and familiar.

**_Don’t leave me._ ******

********

“Steven!” A distant voice sobs, terrified and sounding so very alone, “Steven!”

********

Beneath a long, dizzying shrill sound, he can hear Connie screaming his name like it’s the only word she knows.

********

He can’t answer her, no matter how much he wills himself to.

********

It hurts to breathe, it hurts to think, and all he can do is lean into the warmth that surrounds him like flame. He is drawn to it, with his chattering teeth and quivering shoulders, and a dull ache buries itself into the pit of his stomach- where his gem is.

_Why is it aching?_

His fingers brush across the hem of fabric, tugging and tugging until he can feel the expanse of skin that is his belly. His touch lingers there, wandering.

********

What should be the softest clatter of hard stone fails to come, and a terrifying onslaught of that same _wrong_ resonates within his chest.

********

His gemstone is missing, from what he can feel through numbing fingers, and he doesn’t know what that means for him.

********

“Wait!” Connie, lost in the darkness that clouds his vision, screams once again. He can hear her closer now, like she’s at his side.

********

“Get him into the ship!” Another voice, familiar but indistinct, yells with the fury of a soldier.

********

“His gem- they took his gem!”

********

_THEY TOOK MY GEM!_

********

_THEYTOOKMYGEMTHEYTOOKMYGEMTHEYTOOK-_

********

Alarm bells go off in his head like thunder, and in an instant, his eyes are seeing the rush of colours around him, the nausea-inducing neon lights of command panels and too many buttons. He can recognize the blurry figure of Lapis not too far off, her hands frantic as she sweeps across the glowing shape in front of her, moving as if she were water.

********

“We have no time, Connie!” Peridot’s voice cries out from behind him. “Their ship brought too much attention to us! We need to go!”

********

Before he can say anything, there’s a blinding shock of pink; an array of beautiful colours that paint the world with light, entwining together to form a veil of coral. It moves constantly, wavering in shapes and hues before suddenly freezing, slowly giving way to the sight of a familiar face. He can see White Diamond, wide-eyed and bewildered, and in her mighty shadow two other Diamonds echo her expression. They move slowly, solemnly, almost as if his vision was slowly dragging him towards the ground; and then it stops.

********

His breathing stills, his stuttering heart frantic as the noise reverberated throughout his chest. He isn’t sure what this is, but he can see hair falling across a metal shoulder in a series of colours; rainbow, a sign of Bismuth. In what feels like his other eye, he’s still able to manage a glimpse of the Diamonds and their giant silhouettes, dark paper cutouts against the blinding sun that was White’s body. They stand there in shades of grey, a forgotten background as he, much to his confusion, appears to glance around the room without moving an inch.

********

Then, from far into the depths of whatever remained within him, a twinge of pain erupts, startling him as both sides of this ‘split screen’ jump with alarm.

********

On one end, he feels nothing but sheer sorrow, a violent sense of exhaustion that fans out from his stomach; the feeling slowly pierces him until he feels all but cold and lonely.

********

He swallows down a lump in his throat, gasping and wheezing when, very slowly, the recognition of what’s on the opposite end sets itself into place.

********

_Powerful_ and _unadulterated_ rage, an explosion of empathy without filter as that same side, once again, faces White Diamond.

********

He can only hope that her expression, different beneath her dark makeup and impending horror, is not for him to blame. 

********

The very idea of it sends him into a spiral of the darkness he was under before, and in his struggle to suck in heaving breaths, lungfuls of air that never truly managed to reach its depth, he realizes with frightening clarity of what the opposing visions imply.

********

His gem is sentient, and it has no way to hold any of what he- of what _they_ \- feel back.

********

The world flickers into a sudden sense of darkness, becoming muted and muffled as he allows his head to drop back. In the shadows of whatever he has fallen into, he can only hope that his loss of consciousness, however simple and minor, can hinder the anger that’s divulged from his gem. Though, the ripple of his thoughts bounce off the thinning connection he has with it, and a whisper trails behind with that horrible sense of long, drawn-out _wrong_.

********

**_You left me here._ ******

********

********

********


	2. In Space, Hoping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Between wavering breaths and the struggle to comprehend life as it was, Steven's awake in Bismuth's arms, though in fractures.
> 
> The parts left behind linger, desperate for its body to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, a lot has happened since I last posted! Terribly sorry for my inactivity, I had an accident and encountered _quite_ an amount of writer's block.
> 
> To make it clear, in this chapter the reason Steven is so loopy and carefree - and isn't able to recognize his own blood, for Pete's sake boy - is because his body is literally shutting down while he's breathing. Poor lil guy.

The air is a breath of agony dusting across his skin, the slightest caress that brings forth flame, sparking firelight beneath sordid flesh; it comes as the prick of a thousand needles, little points and spikes that dig and dig until they’re wrathful and caught, tissue and muscle stretched thin upon their scarce touch.

It is pain, a dull, thudding ache that rivals the frantic beating of his struggling heart. He can feel it now, fluttering and faint, like the smallest bird shifting within the cage of his ribs; its wings drumming, its song singing. _A pretty little lullaby, lulling him close to sleep._

He wishes for such kindness now, hoping as his eyes flicker open, as the exhaustion drags him back into the world of violent lights and dripping, vibrant colors.

 _It’s so bright here,_ he thinks, and his gaze shifts slowly, sluggish and crawling across the surrounding world, bringing forth far too many things to see. _But where is here?_

He twitches, and he feels something around him clamp down, sharp ends that press against the softness of his upper arm. A rattling, withering breath ghosts over his face and leaves him shivering and shaken.

“Steven?” He hears Bismuth ask from above, so delicate and fragile in that tough voice of hers. “Are you awake?”

As if it were water itself, her hair comes slipping down in the separation of colors, pooling across his shoulders and skin in the barest touch. He lifts his head and looks to her, where he sees teary eyes, crystalline dollops that glide down her chubby cheeks. They glimmer and shine and catch his own eye, and he watches them for a while, silently studying the way they catch the light and fall, wavering within the air.

 _Crying?_ He remembers after a moment’s pause. _Why is she crying?_

She leans down to him, bringing him forth against her iron chest, stifling even more tears that come and drop away. She’s gasping now, breathing heavy; he can feel the rumble of it all through her armour, pressed against his own skin and lingering.

“Bismuth?” He rasps, unsure of why his own voice, shaken and barely heard to his ears, sounds so pitiful. “What’s wrong…?”

He reaches out to her, brushing his thumb across the gray blur of her face. She catches his hand and pulls it close to her, gasping even more, sobbing and trembling in a way he’d never seen.

“Steven, don’t move, it’s going to be okay.” She manages between breaths, struggling to speak due to the quiver of her words. “We’re almost home, okay? We’re almost home, sweetie.”

He watches her pull and tug at his skin within her grip, and for the second he focuses on her fingers, he finally manages to catch onto the sight of crimson winking at him from beneath the lights. Bright and bold, it taints his hand and flows down the cracks and wrinkles of it all in plentiful colors, shades that are drying and dull, shades that bleed and bleed as if they were still liquid itself. It enraptures him in ways he can’t understand.

“Why’s my hand like that?” He asks after a lapse of silence, hearing nothing but her sniffling and struggling. “What’s going on?”

He turns, just slightly, within her hold, and glimpses over the reflection of her breastplate, the sight of his own eyes peering back at him ominously. The metal is coated in such vibrant red that it’s almost startling, and beyond the splatter and splotches, his gaze is ever-burning; red flows down the ends and the corners, painting his cheeks a magnificent rouge, flowing and supple lines that shift and shake whenever he gives a jolting cough. He studies the red at his lips, the way it cascades down his chin and drips constantly. He can even see that it's stained his teeth pink.

“Bismuth?” He whispers, feeling far more weaker all of a sudden, so much more tired than he’d originally been.

_What happened to me?_

“S-shh, shh, sweetie,” she only says before she brings him even closer, hugging him to her chest and the warmth that radiates from her like fire; he notices, in the back of his head, she’s almost as hot as magma itself, though not at all burning. “Don’t talk. Don’t even talk until we’re home, okay?”

She pets his hair with gentle fingers, and he melts into her embrace quietly, soothed by her slow and careful touches. The previous confusion he’d felt seconds before is gone, losing itself to his exhaustion once again.

“You’re just… falling apart a little, alright?” She murmurs against his curls before ducking her head down, pressing a kiss to his forehead lovingly. “It’s okay, you don’t gotta worry, okay?”

He continues to watch the waver and shake of her hair, locks of rainbows entwined together, jumping and bouncing as the world begins to fade into a greater shadow. Those colours, too, begin to blink away, darkening as he lets out scarce breaths.

They don’t quite reach his lungs, he notices, but it’s good to be in her arms. His throat is sticky and his body is cold, but she keeps him safe. She keeps him warm.

“I’m right here for you, Steven.” He hears her say in the distance, though her voice, too, has become far and dark; it's muffled in ways he can’t comprehend at this second. “I’m right here.”

The world, once so vibrant and bright, returns to the enshrouding darkness that he’d been in what felt like moments before. The noisy rasps of her breath, caught and loud between her soft sobbing, stretches far beyond his reach, going further and further until he isn’t able to hear her anymore.

_He is cold, and he is hot._

He feels alone just as sleep brings him under, eclipsing all life within that sea of shadow and eerie silence.

══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════ 

Unknown to him, so far and so very fickle within a galaxy of stars, the gentle thrumming of his gemstone flickers. A figure pink and gruesome, ugly and misshapen in the oddest and hardest ways, crouches upon its hands and knees within a broken ship, struggling to form a true body.

A mouth at its face gapes open wide, full of teeth and dripping with disgusting slobber, acidic and toxic fluids flowing like water.

The purest and palest gemstone, a great diamond far bigger than his own, shimmers in cracked despair within the wavering line of its forehead.

White Diamond screams in agony within a flush of inconceivable rage, a great fury that robs her of her own body and stabs itself into light. Her voice, broken and faltering in a great deal of lapsing and ripples, spears the air in a shriek so loud it shakes the very ground beneath her.

**_“NEED TO FORM.”_ **


End file.
